fighting fear

26th May

Ayesha

  She sat on the couch in her room, blaming her fortune and its aloofness.  Did she have to be born in a family where girls had to become doctors, boys become engineers and nothing else? For years she had been feigning acquiesce with her mom about medical school. Her phone buzzed. Her mom was calling. Think of the devil and it…. Calls? Well, nonetheless, she picked the phone up.

  “Ayesha , hi! Did you do through admission policies for medical schools?”, her mom asked expectantly.

She froze. She wanted to shout that it was not that she wanted, but instead she said   “But, that’s, like, a couple of years away.”

  “It is never too early to start thinking about your future, honey”.

  “Okay, Ammi, I’ll surf the internet”.  

‘”Good”, she hung up.   She was piqued by her mother. Her whole family, in fact. She switched her lappy  on, and instead of seeing college sites she began  creating tunes and scribble her thoughts in form of lyrics. Ahh, this is life and its satisfaction, she thought.

Alina

“Hey, Alina! Come meet Gavin!”, Alina’s best friend, Beth, called after school. Alina reluctantly left the football news on her phone and jogged towards them , feigning to be exuberant.

  “Yo, Alina here”, she said, smiling.  

Beth chimed in, “ So, Gavin, she is my best friend and, Alina, he is my cousin.” Alina didn’t know where it came from, but she exhaled a sigh of relief.  

“Hey, umm, you don’t look like from around here”, Gavin said to Alina. She looked puzzled for a while, but understood he was wondering about her nationality.

  “Oh, yeah!”, she explained, “I am Pakistani, didn’t you have an idea from the complexion?”

  “Not really”, he laughed, “I just figured you had a good day at the beach”. He grinned, and they laughed.

Soon, Beth’s car came up,”I have to go, you guys have fun!”, she said and sped towards the car. Gavin was funny, and Alina couldn’t ignore the way dimples formed when he smiled his breath taking smile.

  “You look like a football player”, he said, noticing my Nike Magista Obra SG Pros.  

“Oh, I sure am”, she told him.  

“You any good?”, he enquired?  

“Umm, I would think so”, she said. He narrowed his eyes.  

“What? Want me to prove it?”, she snapped.  

He grinned.”Sure, you could have a chance at playing in our team”.  

“Oh, really?”, she smirked ”What makes you think I haven’t tried already? They send me home when they realize that I am so…. Female”. His eyebrows shot up. She didn’t turn out to be the innocent unaware girl he thought she was. And, soon, he was about to know she could do way more than just kicking a ball.

  “So, lets meet at 5 tomorrow evening, my place. You could show us watcha  got.”

  “I am sorry, us?”, she asked.

  “Yeah, you’re gonna show it to the whole team”. He expected an afraid, uncertain face. On the other hand, what he could vividly observe was clear determination.  

“I’ll be there”, and with that, she was gone.